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Poker Origins

There is nothing particularly original about the card play aspect of
the game of Poker. Card games in Europe had for centuries featured all
of the different scoring combinations and much of the similar principles
of betting too. Poker is without doubt the most successful and popular
betting and bluffing game in existence today but this is probably more
due to the over-riding influence of American culture on the world than
any inherent superiority within the game. Here are some of the more important
national betting/bluffing games:

England - Brag

France - Bouillotte

Germany - Poch

Italy - Primiera

Spain - Mus

USA - Poker

Theory 1 -French Poque

The earliest known ancestor of Poker was a German game, called Boeckels,
Bocken, Bogel or Bockspiel. This game is one of the very earliest card
games known. The French derivative of this, virtually the same game, was
called "Glic" and although Glic had died out by 1600, the 1718
edition of the French "Academie des Jeux" featured a game called
"Poque", which was obviously a direct descendent from Glic.
All these old versions of the game featured 3 quite different phases -
and only the second phase was equivalent to the betting & bluffing
game that is now Poker. The allowed combinations to be betted on were
only 3 - a Pair, a Triplet and a Quartet.

Coming full circle, the modern German version of the game is called Poch
or Pochen, presumably from the French Poque. This word is also overwhelmingly
the most likely etymological source for the term "Poker" which
appeared in the first half of the nineteenth century and so the first
and most obvious theory for the link from the old card games to the new
is simply that Poker, invented in French America, was derived directly
from the French game of Poque.

Theory 2 - Italian Primiera

Sometimes, the sixteenth century Italian card game of Primiera is referred
to as the "ancestor of Poker". The game was very fashionable
and had equivalents in other countries at the time: France - Prime, Spain
- Primera and in England, Primero was definitely played by Elizabeth I.
Primiera is unlikely to have been a direct ancestor but Primiera was probably
the first game that featured the idea of betting based on different kinds
of combination being ranked in order - so it seems entirely possible that
this concept did eventually filter into whichever game directly spawned
Poker. Primiera was played with a 40 card deck (sans 8s, 9s & 10s)
wherein 2 cards were dealt, following by betting and then 2 more cards
for a four card hand. The different combinations are interesting:

Numerus - Two or Three cards of the same suit

Primiera (Prime) - Four cards, one of each suit

Supremus - The highest value three-Flush (Ace, Six & Seven)

Fluxus (Flush) - Four of the same suit

Chorus (Quartet) - Four of the same value

Theory 3 - Persian As Nas

The third theory worthy of mention for the direct ancestor of Poker is
the old Persian game of "As-Nas". This is a game for which all
sorts of piffle has been written over the years including such incorrect
assertions that it was played by Christopher Columbus' sailors and has
an ancient history going back numerous centuries. In fact, the earliest
evidence that has been found for the game is in the form of actual As-Nas
cards that have been dated as seventeenth century. Since the game itself
featured only meld combinations like earlier European games and since
"As" is not a Persian word but is in fact the French for "Ace",
the most obvious conclusion to be drawn is that As-Nas is simply a Persian
interpretation of the European game.

Conclusion

The facts in favour of the As-Nas theory are that it seems to be the
first game to feature the Full House combination, it was played with a
20 card pack and the hands were of 5 cards. So it is a feasible hypothesis
because Iranian sailors visited the port and Frenchmen were found in Persia
too, at the time. But Poque was played with 5 card hands and its nineteenth
century descendent 4-card Bouillotte was played with a 20 card pack. Plus
the invention of the Full House is not really a very radical thing if
one is playing melds with 5 cards. So, of the 2 primary competing theories,
the most likely seems to be that original 20 card Poker came from some
variant of the French card game Poque/Bouillotte being played in French
America at the time.

Birth of Poker

Poker was invented in New Orleans, part of the old French
territory of what is now the USA. New Orleans is famous for its Mississippi
leisure steamers and the game first appears to have become popular in
the smokey saloons of those notorious boats.

The first documentary evidence for the game is from a piece
called "Dragoon Campaigns to the Rocky Mountains" of 1836 but
two former gamblers have described the game in their autobiographies as
existing at least as early as 1829.

The early pioneers described the game as it was then - we
can call it "20 Card Poker". It was a four player game played
with a 20-card pack (Aces, Kings, Queens, Jacks and Tens only), so that
all the cards were dealt out. There was no draw and the five scoring combinations
were melds only - i.e. no flushes or straights (runs). So the game was
quite a different affair to modern Poker games.

One Pair

Two Pair

Triplets

Full - meaning a Triplet and a Pair

Four of a Kind

So the best hand - four Aces was unbeatable.

The Rapid Evolution of Poker after 1850

The first reasonable description of the 52 card version of the game turned
up in an 1850 version of "Hoyles book of Games" and within a
decade the 20 Card game was evolved out of history and virtually disappeared.
Like American Pool, this has happened a lot to
different Poker versions to this day - the most recent example being that
of Texas Hold'Em completely eclipsing the formerly popular game of Stud
Poker.

The version played with 52 cards allowed some creative thinking in terms
of the rules and permitted a variety of new additions to the rules after
around 1850 including:

The Draw

The Flush - which turned up around the same time as 52 card Poker.

The Joker

The Straight

The Jackpot

None of these concepts, except the Jackpot was original to Poker and
so it is clear that Poker mainly evolved by borrowing useful concepts
from other games.

Stud Poker, formerly "Stud Horse Poker" is supposedly a cowboy
invention that occurred around Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. In this new
variant, the Draw which had previously been a single one-off affair of
1, 2 or 3 cards for each player each hand, was stretched out to 4 draws
of a single card for each player each hand. The reason for this is readily
apparent - more draws means more rounds of betting and since betting and
bluffing have always been the primary motivation for Poker, this must
have appealed. The first documentary evidence for the game is an 1864
Hoyle.

The Straight

"Straights" and "Straight Flushes" also appeared
in the 1864 Hoyle although to begin with they ranked below Triplets and
Four of a Kind respectively despite the fact that mathematically, this
was an incorrect placement. There was a traditionalist movement that fought
against the introduction of the Straight for some decades but eventually,
around the turn of the century, the Straight and the Straight Flush became
irrevocably established. Here is how the new combinations were placed
in 1864:

One Pair

Two Pair

Straight Sequence or Rotation

Triplets

Flush

Full House

Straight Flush

Fours

It is interesting to note the subtle change of principle in the game
which the flush engendered. Prior to this change, a player holding the
top hand, Four Aces, would actually be betting on a dead cert. The important
question being - is it the act of a gentleman to bet against another when
he knows very well he cannot lose? With the introduction of the new best
hand, the "Royal Flush", there was an almost impossibly small
chance that a player holding such a hand still might not win outright
because another player might also hold a Royal Flush. This minutely small
change in the odds therefore meant that a gentleman could no longer be
labelled a Cad for fleecing another player when holding the top hand!

The Jack-Pot

Another controversial new rule was the imposition that a player cannot
open the betting unless he holds at least a pair of Jacks. Thus the "Jack-Pot"
was born and a standard game of "Draw Poker" still includes
it, today. Originally, it was compulsory for such a player to bet, although
that is not normally true now. The idea of the rule was to prevent the
kind of out and out bluffing where a player bets big on a totally worthless
hand and also to force overly-cautious players to bid when they might
otherwise not have done so. The problem was that many considered the bare-faced
cheek of the total bluff a vital and enjoyable part of the game - an opponent
of this upstart regime called Foster wrote towards the end of the nineteenth
century "The jack-pot, with its accompanying small-limit game, has
completely killed bluffing - that pride and joy of the old-timer...".
Inevitably, the traditionalists once again lost the battle.

The Joker

The first time that the use of "wild" cards is recorded in
Poker was in a form of the game called "Mistigris" using the
53rd blank card that was included with every pack. Mistigris is first
documented in an 1875 Hoyle. This is sometimes used as evidence of a claim
that the Joker was invented by Poker players but this is not true. A special
Joker card was already being included in some packs for use in the game
of Euchre at the same time. In fact it is thought that the term "Joker"
comes from the word Jucker, the Alsation name for Euchre - and this makes
sense because the Joker is the most important card in that game.

The Joker is often compared to the special card 'The Fool' in the Tarot
deck. In fact, although the appearance and sometimes functionality is
often very similar, the link is probably a false one.

Where to Play

Poker is a fashionable game and so there are a plethora of poker websites
on the internet. Poker is also a multi-million dollar Internet gambling
industry and it is difficult to avoid gambling and casino websites when
searching for Poker information.

The 2 biggest Poker tournaments are the Official World Poker Tour and
the World Series of Poker both held in Las Vegas.

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